Thursday, 07 August 2025
Thursday, 07 August 2025
France’s biggest wildfire in years was spreading quickly Wednesday in a Mediterranean region near Spain after leaving one person dead and several injured, authorities said. The fire burned an area larger than Paris, and the military was called in to help.
French Prime Minister François Bayrou deplored a “disaster on an unprecedented scale” in the region.
The fire, which spread very rapidly through forests and villages, has burnt down at least 25 houses, forcing residents and tourists to flee. Many roads are closed.
So far, over 15,000 hectares have burned. That is similar to the total area that burned across all of France in several of the past years, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said. He added this was the biggest area burnt by one single fire in France since 1949.
The fire moved incredibly fast, leaving no time to prepare, said Dutch national Renate Koot, who was on holidays in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse with her partner and had to flee.
"One moment we were on the phone with our children ... thinking, 'Look, a fire!'. The next, we had to jump in the car and leave, while praying for protection. We didn’t take anything with us and just left," she said. "We're okay. Miraculously."
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said the military will reinforce efforts starting from Thursday, with several dozens of soldiers to be deployed.
Jacques Piraux, mayor of the village of Jonquières, said all residents have been evacuated.
“It’s a scene of sadness and desolation,” he told broadcaster BFM TV after visiting there on Wednesday morning. “It looks like a lunar landscape, everything is burned. More than half or three-quarters of the village has burned down. It’s hellish.”
Residents and tourists in nearby areas were requested to remain in their homes unless told to evacuate. Two campgrounds were evacuated as a precaution.
Officials and experts warned the wind could change direction, further complicating efforts to fight the wildfire.
Scientists say the Mediterranean region's hotter, drier summers put it at high risk of wildfires. Once fires start, plentiful dry vegetation and strong winds in the region can cause them to spread rapidly and burn out of control.
"With climate change, the risk of having wildfires is expected to increase during the summer, but also to extend into the autumn and spring, and to spread toward the southwest, the center, and the north of France," said Serge Zaka, a climate and agriculture analyst.
The environment ministry said the Aude region has been experiencing a drought this month, with water use restrictions in place. Lack of rainfall in recent months “played a major role in the spreading of the fire, since the vegetation is very dry,” the statement said.
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing at twice the speed of the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
SPAIN, PORTUGAL
Meanwhile, Spain is experiencing a prolonged heatwave since Sunday that was expected to extend into next week, with temperatures reaching 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas.
The high temperatures have helped to fan several wildfires.
Emergency services on Wednesday were still fighting to put out a blaze in the kitesurfing resort of Tarifa in southern Spain that was believed to have been started when a caravan in a campsite caught fire.
Gusts of wind of up to 50km/h and high temperatures meant that some parts of the fire that had been extinguished were reignited, said Antonio Sanz, interior minister for the regional government of Andalusia.
In Portugal, wildfires have burned through more than 42,000 hectares so far this year, the largest area since 2022 and eight times more than at the same time last year.
More than half of that area was affected in the last two weeks amid high summer temperatures. In the early hours on Wednesday, firefighters managed to control a large blaze that has been raging since Saturday near Vila Real in the north, where the heatwave has brought temperatures up to 40 degree Celsius this week.
